Happy Birthday, Shikamaru to Ino!
by mkh2
Summary: A birthday fic dedicated to Shikamaru and Ino in two parts okay, a little late for Shikamaru but, hey, I'm lazy too... I'm sure he understands.
1. Happy Birthday, Shikamaru!

Happy Birthday, Shika to Ino

-

a Naruto fanfiction

by

mkh2

-

Disclaimer: Sheesh, not even for my birthday, am I granted the rights to Naruto so, no, I don't own Naruto. That tasty privilege belongs to Kishimoto-sensei, whom is obviously not I, seeing as I'm not a man nor am I a resident of Japan.

-

Happy Birthday, Shika to Ino

Part 1: Happy Birthday, Shikamaru!

-

It was a good day by Shikamaru's standards.

Considering he doesn't require much to meet his standards, that isn't saying much.

Still, it was a good day.

Not that it was particularly interesting, well, part of it was, in his opinion, and actually he tends to find that which is interesting to be rather _troublesome_, but anyways… Moving on.

-

Shikamaru had woken up and eaten breakfast, as per his usual routine. His mother gave him some extra crackers from the store. He liked the crackers since they were better than the ones his mother makes but he would never tell her that since he actually enjoyed being alive, thank you. He nodded his goodbyes to his mother and his father, actually calling "Oyaji" since his father seemed to be preoccupied with measuring an exact amount of sugar to add to his coffee.

Coffee is gross… but apparently the side affects more than make up for its lousy taste.

He met up with his team and since his sensei had a short mission to carry out, the team was given the order to train for a couple of hours and then break for lunch. They carried it out exactly – two hours and then lunch… or perhaps brunch, since it was only twenty after ten by that point but, being best friends with Chouji, they _had_ to go to lunch. Shikamaru pointed out to Chouji that technically it was brunch, so Chouji insisted they have that too. Sometimes Shikamaru wondered why he even bothered – it was all so troublesome anyway.

When the two finally left the café at a little after twelve (having had both meals), they went their separate ways; Ino had vanished directly after training, Shikamaru presumed, to go chasing after Sasuke. Girls are scary, he reflected. He'd already decided that he'll never understand and, frankly, he doesn't want to. That would probably scar him for life. Besides, it was too troublesome to learn.

With that last thought, he made his way to his favorite hill to get in some quality cloud-watching time. The grass was soft and springy, the nearby oak offered him some shade without blocking his view of the sky, and the burbling brook lent to the relaxed atmosphere of the place. He'll ignore the fragrant scent of the flowers nearby, seeing as he was a man and it wasn't considered very manly to pay attention to that sort of thing. (Still, that was nice too.)

It was getting near sunset (well, an hour from it anyways… the sun was getting low in the sky, about a fist from the horizon) when he became aware of a presence heading in his direction. He stilled his movements (not many to begin with since, after all, it was too much of a trouble to be moving around to begin with when all that is on your agenda was to watch the clouds drifting by…) hoping that it was just someone passing by and not someone coming over with the malicious intent to… _annoy_ him. (He decided that it was alright to use words other than bother and trouble on the odd occasion, so long as the main point still gets across, but it's too much of a bother to go into detail on _that_.)

Moments later, he found himself staring into the blue-green eyes of Ino.

_Darn it…_

"Hi Shikamaru!" she smiled easily. "Mind if I join you?"

Naturally, he couldn't refuse, otherwise he would end up with a severely pained head and a foot to the stomach… however, he couldn't say no either since, well, he _did_ mind, and he would rather not be bothered. So, being the super genius that he is, Shikamaru went with the next best option.

"_Hn_."

"Oh, good!" Ino dropped into the grass next to him – _right next to him_. He could feel the warmth of her arm against his and there was a lump in his throat as he wondered what could have possessed her to sit so close to him…

"It took me a while to find you – seems I was over at the wrong hill – you know, the one closer to the training area? It also had the spring and the tree, but I forgot that tree was bigger and had branches that went _waaaaaaay_ out over the hill and it would block the clouds from your view," Ino bubbled, rifling in the… basket? …she had next to her.

Shikamaru blinked at her.

"Anyways, I packed a picnic, thought I'd share it with you, since I'm here and all… _Onigiri?_" Ino offered it to the lazy boy. "Mom made it – ran me right out of her 'precious kitchen'… doesn't even let me boil water in there."

Shikamaru slowly took it from her, hoping not to set her off because of some silly thought like, "Oh, so you trust my mom's cooking but not mine?" He mentally shuddered as, for a moment, he imagined the pain that would be rained on him for such a slight.

Ino pulled another one out and laid next to him, her chin level with his shoulder as she wriggled in the grass, trying to find a comfortable spot.

"Hey, this is pretty nice," she commented. "The water sounds nice, and the sky looks even bluer here and… the flowers also smell nice."

Shikamaru was silent.

"Did you notice? The flowers, I mean," Ino glanced at him.

What could Shikamaru say? As a man, he would have to say that, no, he hadn't noticed even though, technically, he had, but that was _only_ because, as a super genius, he was _required_ to notice such things. Naturally. So he gave the best response he could.

"Hn."

"Well, of course you did. You notice everything, don't you," grinned Ino, biting into her onigiri, which reminded Shikamaru of the one in his hand and he also took a bite. It was pretty good. He raised an eyebrow at it.

"Mom loves her spice."

Shikamaru nodded, quickly finishing it off before he realized it. He blinked in surprise to find another in his hands moments after he was done.

"Eat up."

He did.

The rosy, fiery hues of the sunset set the sky ablaze, orange and red and yellow and purple and a hint of green coloring all of Konoha below and the clouds above. Shikamaru raised a hand to his face but was stopped short by Ino speaking again.

"You have big hands."

"What?" Shikamaru then wished he'd remembered to keep his mouth shut.

"No, seriously – look at mine and then look at yours. Let's compare," Ino shifted, raising her right hand to place her palm against the palm of his left hand that was still in the air next to her. "See? You have big hands."

"That's only because I'm bigger than you," Shikamaru stated, not relishing the sudden _thump thump_ that echoed dully in his chest for a brief moment or the way that _lump_ made its way into his throat again.

"So? Sasuke's bigger than you but his hands aren't this big," Ino frowned.

Shikamaru ignored the mention of Sasuke and refrained from pointing out that _he_ was bigger than _Sasuke_ by half a centimeter. He pulled his hand away, scratched the bridge of his nose, and then draped his arm across his torso carelessly.

"It's getting late," he mentioned, eyes drifting to the half a sun in the distance.

"Right," sighed Ino, sitting up. She glance at Shikamaru.

"Guess it would be too much to ask for you to walk me home, right?" she murmured.

Shikamaru froze, wide-eyed, well, as wide-eyed as he gets, as he looked up at the blonde girl from where he lay.

Ino smiled brilliantly. "Happy birthday, Shikamaru." She walked out of his view, basket swinging from his arm.

Shikamaru blinked after the girl. He had forgotten about that. Shikamaru started suddenly and a blush crept over his features. _He didn't recall telling her about his birthday…_

-

The last sliver of the sun had disappeared over the horizon and the moon was already hanging low in the sky when Shikamaru slowly walked into the house, hands in his pockets and a sleepy look carefully schooled on his features—he was still wondering how Ino knew his birthday, after all. His father clapped him on the shoulder and steered him to the kitchen where a large meal was prepared and some presents placed at his seat were waiting to be unwrapped. Shikamaru blinked at the large amount of food, slightly curious, until he saw the brown-red hair of his friend, Chouji, as he peeked over the food.

"Oh good, you're here – now we can eat!"

With a laugh from his dad, they did. Shikamaru ate a little less than usual, not that anyone actually noticed – he _had_ just eaten, after all – and opened his presents. Kunai, clothes, shuriken, a new earring, a new shuriken holster with the leaf symbol, a small barbecue, a scroll about various things that Shikamaru wasn't really paying attention to, something about fire jutsu and shadow jutsu and he wasn't interested anyway since it would mean more work, and sunscreen (Chouji said it would be useful for long cloud-watching days, and he grinned a big grin at Shikamaru while his mother shook her head.) Lots of stuff, all of which he had to carry upstairs by himself when the presents were over and Chouji had gone home.

A few hours later Shikamaru found himself lying on his bed, looking out the wind at the seemingly cloudless sky when he decided that, yes, today was a good day after all.

-Owari-

* * *

Yeah, yeah, I know, it's been forever since I posted something. Mo, don't look at me like that. It's not _completely_ my fault. -twiddles her thumbs-

Well, that's it for part one, stay tuned for the next piece – Ino. We share the same birthday – September 23rd – and so I'm 21 now. X3 Yes, I know, I know, I'm old. O.o;;


	2. Happy Birthday, Ino!

Happy Birthday, Shika to Ino

-

a Naruto fanfiction

by

mkh2

-

Disclaimer: Sheesh, not even for my birthday am I granted the rights to Naruto so, no, I don't own Naruto. That tasty privilege belongs to Kishimoto-sensei, whom is obviously not I, seeing as I'm not a man nor am I a resident of Japan.

-

Happy Birthday, Shika to Ino

Part 2: Happy Birthday, Ino!

-

It was a good day by Ino's standards.

Considering he doesn't require much to meet his standards, that isn't saying much.

Okay, so things didn't go exactly as she planned, which usually goes against her standards, but being the forgiving woman that she is, and the small fact that her standards are ever-changing, she didn't press the subject

Still, it was a good day.

It wasn't a very exciting day, in her opinion, since to make it so would require at least five minutes of ogling Sasuke but… _Ahem_. Moving on.

-

Ino, being the lovely, graceful lady that she was, woke up an hour before she had to meet with the rest of her team, as per her usual routine. She showered – only fifteen minutes, since she had the thing down to a science. She brushed her hair to a fine shine and tied it in the bun she tended to sport since she had chopped off her hair. She brushed her teeth till they glistened and washed and pampered her face so that she looked awake and fresh-faced and put on her cherry lip gloss since it tasted so nice. She put on her outfit and ran her fingers through her bangs to give herself a carefree look and went downstairs to eat breakfast with her mom and dad. Her dad was sighing over his tea about something that Shikamaru's dad had done or said or something in yesterday's mission but she was more interested in the sweet rolls piled high in the basket in the center of the table. She peeked at her dad. He looked tired. Maybe he should try coffee…

Okay, coffee is gross… but the caffeine _more_ than make up for its lousy taste.

She met up with her team and when it turned out that their sensei had bailed (it seemed he had forgotten to mention that his short mention would span over more than one day), they went their separate ways. She went and did a little training (There was _no way_ she would lose to Sakura! Grr!) then went home and cleaned up. She did some chores her mom asked, straightened the scrolls in her room, wrote in her journal (regular girls have diaries – _ninja_ girls have _journals_), then went downstairs to eat. Her mom whipped up some extra tasty food (Ino, of course, could only watch from the dining area since nobody but _nobody_ was allowed inside her mom's 'precious kitchen') and she had a hearty lunch. She went upstairs and read some magazines and then an hour later brushed her teeth (since she read _somewhere_ that you should wait an hour after eating to brush your teeth since the enamel could get damaged if you brush right after) so that they glistened once more. That done, she went downstairs, picked up the picnic basket her mom made her, and left.

She wondered if maybe she should look for Shikamaru, same as she had yesterday, but decided that since today was _her_ birthday, she should try to find Sasuke and see if he'd like to go on a date with her. Boys are a mystery. Some day she'll figure them out and then, _her eyes sparkled in delight_, and _then_ Sasuke will be hers. She will not lose to Sakura!

With that last thought, she wandered through the village, intent on getting in some quality boy-watching time. (Read: Sasuke-watching.) With a moment's inspiration she headed over to the usual training grounds of Team 7, curious to see if they might be doing drills or something else. Entering the large clearing she looked up to see a fairly common sight: Sasuke and Naruto sparring. The others were not present so it could only be assumed that Sasuke came there to train and since only Naruto was around he decided he _might as well_ spar with him.

She sat on a nearby rock and watched them fight. It was like a dance. Sasuke coming forcefully at Naruto with furious kicks, punches and kunai, Naruto responding in kind with his equally forceful lunges, slices and shuriken, neither intent on pummeling each other but instead seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the fun of the fight. Ino absently thought that she had never seen Sasuke smile so much at one time. Naruto grinned back just as often. He seemed to be one hundred percent aware of every single one of Naruto's moves.

There was a moment when Sasuke's pant leg, when he dropped to do a drop kick, snagged on a kunai and he landed flat on his back. Naruto, having jumped backward, saw his chance and did the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu and the five blondes pounced on the boy. A moment later four disappeared in a cloud of smoke leaving one rather dazed looking blonde boy sprawled across the lap of an equally dazed looking black-haired boy. Sasuke blinked back into reality at the sound of a rumbling tummy and grinned with amusement at the head of blonde resting on his stomach.

"Hungry, baka?" Sasuke asked the small lump on top of him.

"Aa… and I got squished," Naruto mumbled.

"So? I got 'squished' more," smirked Sasuke.

Naruto sat up, yawned and then grinned at Sasuke, who tried to rub his chest without Naruto noticing. His grin grew wider.

"Knocked the wind out of you too, huh? Ah, that was a good spar!" Naruto smiled slightly and flopped back into the grass.

"Yeah," Sasuke agreed, ignoring the first sentence, and mimicked the smaller boy. "We should do this more often."

"Well, duh."

The boys started laughing.

Ino made a face. Then again, she thought as she worriedly clutched her basket to her and eyed the "crazily" laughing boys, maybe she didn't want to figure boys out. Boys are weird.

-

She had just been there the other day and the grass was just as green, the sky just as blue, clouds just as white, and the air just as sweet smelling today as yesterday but the boy who had been lying there then was absent. Frowning slightly she sat in the shade of the tree, wondering where that lazy boy could be. She rifled through her basket and pulled out a box of pocky and shoved one stick after another in her mouth – five sticks of strawberry pocky. She paused and looked for the chocolate pocky, thinking she could put five sticks of those in her mouth as well. She froze when she heard a low voice wash over her.

"Oh, _there_ you are, Ino."

Blinking, she turned around to face the boy from yesterday. His eyes trailed down her face to land on her mouth and he raised an eyebrow. She felt her face begin to heat up when he spoke again.

"Hanging around Chouji much lately?"

Blushing furiously, she hurriedly chomped off the ends, chewed and swallowed, then as an after thought dropped the ends into a napkin and shoved it into the basket.

"I'm not! I was just – never mind," Ino made a face. "Were you looking for me?"

Shikamaru looked evenly at her for a moment then nodded and went over to sit by her – not as close as they were sitting yesterday but enough so that she noticed. Funny, she didn't remember it being so warm here…

"Today is your birthday, right?" Shikamaru was looking up at the sky and not her but she didn't mind – she knew he was paying close attention to her. She nodded.

"Right, so, this is for you," Shikamaru handed her a bag – green and blue with a white flower print – and a another white flower sticking out of it, a lily. Ino smiled and took the bag, blinking at how the bridge of his nose had turned slightly pink.

"Thanks! May I open it now?" A nod, and now his ears turned pink as well. How odd.

Moving her hand past the white and green paper, her hand encountered a hard square _something_ that she quickly pulled out. A book? No, a journal. Black leather with gold and green trim with her name in scrawling gold calligraphy in the lower left hand corner of its front cover, she opened it up to the first page of the journal to read the short note.

Ino —

I know you like to spend large quantities of your time writing in your journal. Here's a new one for the whole next year of your life. Best wishes on your birthday.

Shikamaru

Ino stared for a moment. Somehow the pathetic note seemed oddly… sweet. Shifting the bag between her knees, she heard something rattle and felt a light weight rest against her kneecap. Glancing at Shikamaru, who nodded once, she reached back inside a pulled out a heavy length of cloth. Curiously, she unrolled it and her eyes lit up. Two engraved pens were inside, along with an inkwell in the shape of a cat and a bottle of ink. Shikamaru coughed.

"I wasn't sure which method you preferred, so the other pen is a ballpoint," Shikamaru glanced at her. "There's one more."

"Eh?"

Rummaging inside the bag once more, she pulled out a folded cloth – the shade matched her eyes exactly when she was at her happiest – and a tie. She raised an eyebrow at it.

"For your hair. Thought you could use another one." Shikamaru leaned back into the grass on his arms, letting his neck arch and head loll back. He made quite a striking sight like that…

Eh? What was she _thinking?_

Shaking her head slightly she smiled and looked at him carefully. "Thank you."

"Hn."

She sighed. That was as close to a "your welcome" as she could expect. Ino glanced at picnic basket beside.

"Oh, Shika…"

-

The next couple of hours was spent in relative silence, both enjoying the contents of the well packed basket, looking at clouds in the sky, Ino chattering about what cloud looked like what and the last time she had seen Sakura and the like.

The sun was yet again sinking into the misty clouds at the horizon, setting Konoha awash in a glorious gold hue, stripes of vivid reds and yellows interlaced into it and purple clouds hanging low at the other end of the sky.

"It's getting late," Shikamaru murmured, glancing over at Ino.

"Right," sighed Ino, sitting up. She glanced at Shikamaru before standing up. Shikamaru also rose and they both started walking back together. Ino flushed slightly, wondering why exactly he had chosen to walk with her today instead of staying a while after like yesterday.

"You know," Shikamaru drawled. "_I'm_ taller than Sasuke."

"Oh really," Ino asked, sliding her eyes over to him.

"By half a centimeter," Shikamaru continued, looking straight ahead.

"How do you know?" Ino asked, curious.

Shikamaru glanced at her and gave her a rather secretive, rather _mischievous_ smirk. She pouted and tugged at his arm.

"Tell me, Shikamaru, tell me!"

The rest of the way home was filled with laughs and jokes (well, mostly made on her end but, Ino decided, Shikamaru thought they were funny too), the basket hanging off Shikamaru's arm and the gift bag being clutched firmly to her chest.

At her house he walked her to her door and then turned to look at her carefully.

"Happy Birthday, Ino," Shikamaru said, his voice low as he glanced curiously at the door once. Bowing his head slightly, he turned and walked off.

A happy smile on her face, she made her way inside, only to be assaulted by her mother who seemed to have the strangest idea that she was out on a date…

-

There was a heaping mound of food on the table along with a beautiful cake. Everything smelled delicious, of course, and Ino wondered if her mother had ever been in the flower shop today. There were plenty of presents, of course, ranging from the practical – clothes, extra shuriken, a new weapons holster, and vest – to the whimsical – a beaded picture frame, gaudy curtains, a camouflage shirt with the words "Ha! Now you can't see me!" in white letters, a new necklace and a bright green bag. There was even a present from Sakura, whose card featuring a pig made it apparent as to whom it came from (it also came with a flower arrangement and a coin purse with a dandelion on the side.)

The evening continued with lots of laughs and a 'special treat' from her mother – she let her into the kitchen and, under special supervision, was allowed to boil the water for the tea. They had cake and lots of food ranging from the ordinary to the spectacular (when did mom have time to get _lobster?_) and told more stories. Her Dad mentioned something about Shikamaru's dad, which she didn't pay attention to again, but instead found herself fingering the journal resting in the bag.

A few hours later Ino found herself lying on her bed and hugging the journal Shikamaru had given her to her chest when she decided that, yes, today was a good day after all.

-Owari-

* * *

And here is the end of my ficcy. Sheesh, took me a while to get this out. Today is my birthday, September 23rd, same as Ino's. Shikamaru's birthday is the 22nd. Personality wise… I'm probably closer to Shikamaru.

Hope you enjoyed this fic!


End file.
